JournalTOCs

Economic and Labour Relations Review
Journal Prestige (SJR): 0.393

Citation Impact (citeScore): 1
Number of Followers: 18

Hybrid journal (It can contain Open Access articles)
ISSN (Print) 1035-3046 - ISSN (Online) 1838-2673
Published by Sage Publications

[1174 journals]

Labour market flexibilisation in Lithuania: Outcomes and impacts on gender
differences in work arrangements
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  Authors: Arunas Juska, Jekaterina Navicke
  Abstract: The Economic and Labour Relations Review, Ahead of Print.
  This paper evaluates the impacts of 2017’s labour law liberalisation on labour market flexibility in Lithuania. While employment did grow rapidly in 2017–2019, there was little change in labour market flexibility. Against expectations, part-time employment declined as labour relations continued to be administered under path-dependent institutional inertia inherited from previous decades. The prevalence of full-time, dual-earner employment was shaped by the country’s socialist legacy and was reflected in high employment rates and permanent open-ended contracts for both men and women. Analysis also showed that the revised labour law lowered the probability for women with family care responsibilities to be hired. Once hired, they were offered permanent employment albeit with the reduced protections that such contracts now provide. Impacts of the new labour law on shaping what is considered to be ‘men’s work’ and ‘women’s work’ in Lithuania are discussed.JEL Codes: J00
  Citation: The Economic and Labour Relations Review
  PubDate: 2022-06-09T09:17:45Z
  DOI: 10.1177/10353046221104506
Inequality regimes in male-dominated trades: What role do apprenticeship
intermediaries (GTOs) play'
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  Authors: Larissa Bamberry, Donna Bridges, Elizabeth Wulff, Branka Krivokapic-Skoko
  Abstract: The Economic and Labour Relations Review, Ahead of Print.
  In Australia and internationally, women continue to be underrepresented in male-dominated trade occupations. A notable barrier is the apprenticeship system, which requires women to overcome obstacles in employment and training. Government and industry stakeholders have encouraged women’s apprenticeships in male-dominated trades through the development of Group Training Organisations’ (GTOs) that operate as intermediaries between apprentices and employers. Extending Acker’s model of workplace inequality regimes, we argue that inequality regimes operate between organisations at an industry-wide level. We ask ‘Do GTOs operate to produce and reproduce workplace and industry-wide inequality regimes' Or can they facilitate improved gender diversity in male-dominated trades'’ Drawing on a recent study of regional tradeswomen’s employment, we find that although GTOs have an important role in facilitating gender diversity, they have inconsistent results in challenging existing inequality regimes. There is a risk that they may become a vector of transmission for workplace inequality regimes to the broader industry.JEL Codes: R23, J71, I24
  Citation: The Economic and Labour Relations Review
  PubDate: 2022-06-02T05:16:03Z
  DOI: 10.1177/10353046221096270
Informality on the rise: Dissecting quasi-formal employment in the EU
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  Authors: Stanislaw Cichocki, Josip Franic
  Abstract: The Economic and Labour Relations Review, Ahead of Print.
  In spite of a growing body of literature on quasi-formal employment in the European Union (EU), there is still limited knowledge regarding the exact functioning of this illegal employment scheme. To fill this gap, we report data from the 2019 Special Eurobarometer on undeclared work, which reveals that 30.1% of European workers have higher income from employment than reported to tax authorities. Explicitly, 2.6% of registered dependent employees are entitled to cash top-ups to the official wage, for 7.8% of them the amount of supplementary payments depends on the work efforts, whereas 9.2% receive informal remuneration under multiple arrangements. In addition to these ‘regular recipients’, we also found that 10.5% of employees in the EU can be classified as ‘sporadic quasi-formal workers’. Besides showing that wage underreporting is far more pervasive than previously assumed, the study also offers a more nuanced insight into different manifestations of this illicit practice in the EU. Results of a two-level random intercept multinomial logit model reveal that women are less likely to receive fixed and variable cash-in-hand payments, whereas older individuals have a lower propensity to receive work-time-related income. The analysis also highlights that professionals, service sector employees, manual job workers and individuals whose jobs require travelling are more prone to variable wages compared to the rest of the population. Given a modest success in combating the phenomenon to this date, these findings will be particularly valuable for policymakers in their endeavours to devise tailored policy measures.JEL Codes: E26, H26
  Citation: The Economic and Labour Relations Review
  PubDate: 2022-05-04T11:40:04Z
  DOI: 10.1177/10353046221092431
Labour agency in the future of work: Shenzhen’s maker community
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  Authors: Bingqing Xia
  Abstract: The Economic and Labour Relations Review, Ahead of Print.
  Since emerging around 2010, maker culture and the maker movement have drawn little attention from digital labour research. This article fills the gap by exploring sociocultural dynamics that have emerged in maker culture, such as how makers in China mobilise their agency to struggle for a path forward to achieve decent work and a better society. The article first reviews research on the Chinese maker community as well as digital labour, in particular the dualism of exploitation and workplace resistance in current digital labour research. It argues that makers, in the case studied, mobilise certain agency initiating from sociocultural dynamics beyond the framework of exploitation. The article then explicates the argument with cases collected from our fieldwork in Shenzhen’s maker community in July–August 2017. It shows makers’ practices originating from the open-source ethos, such as an awareness of sharing and mutual support in moulding a ‘micro-innovation’ model, and in creating products that aim to benefit vulnerable communities and build up a sustainable ecosystem. The article thus turns the current economic discussion on maker culture in a new direction: the sociocultural impact of the maker movement. Furthermore, it suggests that this research on the sociocultural impact fills the gap between existing digital labour research and maker studies.JEL codes: H49, O3, Z1
  Citation: The Economic and Labour Relations Review
  PubDate: 2022-04-27T12:27:15Z
  DOI: 10.1177/10353046221091571
Dividend policy from the perspective of social system theory
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  Authors: Przemysław Wechta
  Abstract: The Economic and Labour Relations Review, Ahead of Print.
  The aim of the article is to analyse the functions that dividends perform in contractual relationships between public companies’ executives and shareholders. The author analyses the income function of dividend, but also considers its sociological aspects. Talcott Parsons' social system theory is the main point of reference, especially, the concept of contract institution. The article justifies the thesis on the relevance of dividends in shaping the equilibrium of power, information policy and the composition of shareholders in a joint-stock company. Dividend policy has a great regulatory potential, which is important in the face of various crises occurring in contemporary capitalism.JEL codes: A14, D86, Z13
  Citation: The Economic and Labour Relations Review
  PubDate: 2022-03-02T04:58:32Z
  DOI: 10.1177/10353046221078879
Austerity in the United Kingdom and its legacy: Lessons from the COVID-19
pandemic
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  Authors: Tania Arrieta
  First page: 238
  Abstract: The Economic and Labour Relations Review, Ahead of Print.
  The COVID-19 pandemic revealed that public institutions and some households in the United Kingdom (UK) were in a vulnerable and weak financial position to mitigate its immediate outcomes. Public institutions did not have the necessary resources to support their communities and low-income groups were disproportionally affected by the economic contraction of 2020–2021. This paper explores how the disastrous consequences of the pandemic were exacerbated by the implementation of an austerity programme, that as an extension of a neoliberal ideology, supported the development of the market at the expense of reducing the welfare state. Through an assessment of four trends that were reinforced during austerity—the four ‘Ds’—this article shows that austerity influenced many of the struggles observed during the pandemic. These trends are disinvestment, decentralisation, decollectivisation and disintegration. Despite the lessons learnt in 2020–2021 and the evident need to move away from a neoliberal agenda that dismantled the capacities of the state, this article concludes that neoliberalism continues to threaten the welfare state and the formation of social collectivities. Some expenditure decisions taken by the British government in 2020–2021 could further deepen social class divisions and regional inequalities. More is needed from the government to tackle these social problems and to build a fairer and more equal society.JEL Codes: H0, I3, O1
  Citation: The Economic and Labour Relations Review
  PubDate: 2022-03-28T11:49:21Z
  DOI: 10.1177/10353046221083051
‘Zonked the hell out’: Climate change and heat stress at work
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  Authors: Elizabeth Humphrys, James Goodman, Freya Newman
  First page: 256
  Abstract: The Economic and Labour Relations Review, Ahead of Print.
  Climate change is most directly felt by people who cannot escape its impacts, including workers whose source of livelihood may put them directly at risk from high heat. Research on these impacts for Australian workers, especially the sociopolitical determinants of effective workplace heat management, remains limited. This article presents findings from a national research project that investigated these issues in collaboration with the Australia-based United Workers Union. It reports on the experiences of members exposed to high heat, explores how they address heat stress and how they relate this to climate change. The article expands understanding of the impacts of workplace heat, especially for indoor workers and those in lower paid jobs, through a focus on how workers articulate their experiences and understand and exercise their agency at work.JEL codes: Q54, J28
  Citation: The Economic and Labour Relations Review
  PubDate: 2022-04-13T01:54:03Z
  DOI: 10.1177/10353046221092414
Forgotten keyworkers: the experiences of British seafarers during the
COVID-19 pandemic
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  Authors: Helen Devereux, Emma Wadsworth
  First page: 272
  Abstract: The Economic and Labour Relations Review, Ahead of Print.
  During the COVID-19 pandemic the UK Government designated seafarers as keyworkers. This article explores their experiences in an industry operating under international legislation designed to ensure and maintain their employment and working conditions. Three hundred and fifty-two British seafarers completed an online questionnaire. The findings revealed two key themes: the erosion of the terms and conditions of those who work at sea, and the differing experiences of those who were precariously employed on single voyage contracts in comparison to those in permanent employment. In contrast with precariously employed individuals, more seafarers with permanent contracts were joining the vessel as normal and fewer were not being paid having been unable to join a ship as scheduled. In a similar vein, fewer permanently employed seafarers were adversely financially impacted during the pandemic. The article concludes that those with the weakest employment relationships have experienced the greatest challenges as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic–a scenario which was possible as a result of the limited enforcement of the regulatory framework intended to protect those who work at sea.
  Citation: The Economic and Labour Relations Review
  PubDate: 2022-03-28T12:18:15Z
  DOI: 10.1177/10353046221079136
Socio-economic inequalities in ability to work from home during the
coronavirus pandemic
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  Authors: Chijioke O Nwosu, Umakrishnan Kollamparambil, Adeola Oyenubi
  First page: 290
  Abstract: The Economic and Labour Relations Review, Ahead of Print.
  The coronavirus pandemic has changed the nature of work, with physical distancing regulations aimed at preventing infections necessitating work-from-home (WFH) arrangements. Studies indicate that many individuals prefer working from home due to fear of contracting the virus at work. However, not all work can be performed from home. Moreover, jobs that are amenable to be performed from home generally pay more, while the ability to WFH will likely increase income inequality. Therefore, we ascertained socio-economic inequalities in ability to WFH among South African employees during the pandemic. We used data from the National Income Dynamics Study-Coronavirus Rapid Mobile Survey, a nationally representative longitudinal survey of South Africans conducted during the pandemic. We found that the ability to WFH was pro-rich (i.e. concentrated on workers in higher socio-economic classes) in all study periods. The results were robust to the use of different ranking variables and varying the age cut-off. There was no gender difference in these inequalities. Casual employment, urban residence, being married/cohabiting, age and household size dampened the degree to which ability to WFH favoured those in higher socio-economic classes. Conversely, being non-African, living in a house/flat and having more education increased the pro-richness of the ability to WFH. This study highlights the significant inequalities associated with ability to WFH, a likely important positive determinant of welfare in the pandemic and post-pandemic periods. Interventions targeted at inequality-enhancing factors such as race, housing and education may be important in lowering these inequalities.JEL Codes: D63, J22
  Citation: The Economic and Labour Relations Review
  PubDate: 2022-04-06T01:19:54Z
  DOI: 10.1177/10353046221085598
Challenging the entrepreneurial discourse around women home-based
workers’ empowerment
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  Authors: Afreen Huq, Annie Delaney, Ben Debney
  First page: 308
  Abstract: The Economic and Labour Relations Review, Ahead of Print.
  This article explores dominant entrepreneurship discourse and practice surrounding informal women home-based workers, and their relationship to goals of individual empowerment. We argue that conventional neoliberal entrepreneurship discourse conflates empowerment and performativity, linking the capacity of women to develop greater agency with their incorporation into an economic regime with predetermined roles, labelled ‘empowerment’. Applying a critical lens, we analyse the development discourse on entrepreneurship and economic performativity in these terms – looking to understand the characteristics of empowerment concerning home-based workers in Bangladesh working for a fair-trade organisation and a domestic garment supply chain. We argue that the conflation of empowerment and performativity serves the convenience of neoliberal ideology rather than the empowerment needs of those to whom such discourses are applied. To complement our critique, based on the empowerment literature, we develop a conceptual framework of empowerment and agency encompassing individual and collective agency, considering these in light of the relationship between performativity and social reproduction. Coupling a more nuanced understanding of empowerment to the critique of the entrepreneurial discourse, as applied to women home-based workers, provides a theoretical contribution to the empowerment and entrepreneurial discourse literature.JEL Codes: D63, J16, J4
  Citation: The Economic and Labour Relations Review
  PubDate: 2022-01-18T01:15:58Z
  DOI: 10.1177/10353046211072539
Understanding women’s empowerment in post-Covid Korea: A historical
analysis
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  Authors: Haeyoung Jang, Seung-Ho Kwon
  First page: 351
  Abstract: The Economic and Labour Relations Review, Ahead of Print.
  South Korea has been faced with a widening economic gender gap during the recent Covid-19 pandemic. To inform discussion of Korean women’s future following the pandemic, this article explores the country’s history of women’s empowerment. It identifies cultural, educational, economic, and political changes, and their long-term effects on women’s role and status. The analysis is based on data collected from Korea’s national statistical database and a review of relevant literature. Findings inform policy directions for advancing women’s economic empowerment in Korea and other countries following a similar development path and contribute to expanding our understanding of the factors and relations influencing women’s empowerment.JEL codes: J160
  Citation: The Economic and Labour Relations Review
  PubDate: 2022-03-02T04:50:12Z
  DOI: 10.1177/10353046221078880
The decline and fall of the Australian automotive industry
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  Authors: Tom Conley
  First page: 415
  Abstract: The Economic and Labour Relations Review, Ahead of Print.
  This article assesses the historical political economy of the Australian automotive industry alongside the paradigmatic policy shift in economic policy away from protection towards neoliberalism and globalisation. It focuses on the politics of policy change and government assistance, providing a detailed historical narrative of the development and decline of the Australian automotive industry. From the mid-1980s to the mid-2010s, policy-makers oversaw the decline and fall of the Australian automotive industry. The process of decline occurred within a long-term cycle of new assistance, declining protection, new investment, inadequate restructuring, weak profitability, declining market share, and new assistance. Each cycle, however, was unable to stave off renewed crisis and eventual demise. Over the same period, Australian policy-makers transformed the economy from one of the most protectionist in the developed world to one of the most open. The article outlines the impact of neoliberalism on the automotive industry and analyses what the decline of the industry tells us about how the neoliberal policy structure operates in the ‘actually existing’ political economy. It argues that while the burgeoning neoliberal policy structure in the 1980s and 1990s acted to restrict the range of policy choices available for restructuring the industry, the domestic politics of industry assistance acted to restrict the neoliberal colonisation of the policy agenda. Neoliberal governance has had to contend with political imperatives for continuing assistance, while, at the same time, those political imperatives have been increasingly shaped by neoliberalism.JEL codes: L50, L62
  Citation: The Economic and Labour Relations Review
  PubDate: 2022-01-28T01:04:46Z
  DOI: 10.1177/10353046221079870
Telework potential in the Philippines
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  Authors: Ammielou Gaduena, Christopher Ed Caboverde, John Paul Flaminiano
  First page: 434
  Abstract: The Economic and Labour Relations Review, Ahead of Print.
  Using work from home (WFH) scores obtained by matching Philippine occupations with U.S. O*NET occupations, this paper estimates that only 12.38% of all workers can WFH and 25.7% of Philippine occupations are teleworkable––mostly from the following occupational groups: professionals, clerical support workers, and technicians and associate professionals. The education, real estate and, professional, scientific and technical sectors account for the largest share of teleworkable jobs. Those workers belonging to lower per capita income deciles, who are male, who have lower levels of education, who are self-employed, aged 55 and older, and who are working in sectors such as agriculture and retail, are also less likely to be in teleworkable occupations.JEL codes: J240, J280
  Citation: The Economic and Labour Relations Review
  PubDate: 2022-03-18T02:35:09Z
  DOI: 10.1177/10353046221075103
Book Review: Toxic: The Rotting Underbelly of the Tasmanian Salmon
Industry
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  Authors: Norbert Ebert
  First page: 455
  Abstract: The Economic and Labour Relations Review, Ahead of Print.
  
  Citation: The Economic and Labour Relations Review
  PubDate: 2022-03-28T11:50:19Z
  DOI: 10.1177/10353046221077563
Employment and the distribution of intra-household financial satisfaction
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  Authors: Jaslin K Kalsi, Siobhan Austen, Astghik Mavisakalyan
  First page: 329
  Abstract: The Economic and Labour Relations Review, Ahead of Print.
  This study applies a methodology used by De Henau and Himmelweit (2013) to study resource allocation in Australian mixed-sex couple households. Using 18 waves of data from the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia survey and by means of fixed effects estimations, the study identifies how men’s and women’s contributions via paid and unpaid work influences their satisfaction with the financial situation (SWFS) within households. Employment status is used to proxy each partner’s contribution to household resources. The results reveal that paid contributions through full-time employment have a strong role in determining SWFS. This is a source of gender difference because Australian men are much more likely to be engaged in full-time employment than women. Most often, for both men and women, unpaid contributions to household resources (proxied by less than full-time employment) has a detrimental effect on their own SWFS, but smaller effects on their partner’s SWFS. These results imply that gender asymmetry in paid and unpaid contributions to household resources contributes to the reproduction of gender inequalities within Australian households. The results add external validity to the relevance of De Henau and Himmelweit’s (2013) analysis of these issues.JEL codes: B54, I31, E24
  Citation: The Economic and Labour Relations Review
  PubDate: 2021-11-30T12:44:00Z
  DOI: 10.1177/10353046211041394
Monopsony power and the demand for low-skilled workers
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  Authors: Arnd Kölling
  First page: 377
  Abstract: The Economic and Labour Relations Review, Ahead of Print.
  This study analyses firms’ labour demand when employers have at least some monopsony power. It is argued that without taking into account (quasi-)monopsonistic structures of the labour market, wrong predictions are made about the effects of minimum wages. Using switching fractional panel probit regressions with German establishment data, I find that slightly more than 80% of establishments exercise some degree of monopsony power in their demand for low-skilled workers. The outcome suggests that a 1% increase in payments for low-skilled workers would, in these firms, increase employment for this group by 1.12%, while firms without monopsony power reduce the number of low-skilled, by about 1.63% for the same increase in remuneration. The study can probably also be used to explain the limited employment effects of the introduction of a statutory minimum wage in Germany and thus leads to a better understanding of the labour market for low-skilled workers.JEL Codes: J23, J42, C23, D24
  Citation: The Economic and Labour Relations Review
  PubDate: 2021-12-09T05:24:29Z
  DOI: 10.1177/10353046211042427
The role of labour unrest and skilled labour on outward foreign direct
investment in Taiwan, Republic of China, ROC
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  Authors: Yu Cheng Lai, Santanu Sarkar
  First page: 396
  Abstract: The Economic and Labour Relations Review, Ahead of Print.
  This paper builds an estimation model to test whether improved labour standards necessarily lead firms to send work offshore to countries with lower wages and fewer employment protections; or improved labour standards influence the labour market, where with time, firms attract more skilled workers, which help deter outward foreign direct investment (FDI). When more firms comply with improved labour standards, the industrial relations climate also improves as non-compliance usually causes labour unrest. Using a model built on pooled cross-sectional time-series data from 2008–17, we studied the role of changes in labour unrest and the percentage of skilled workers in the labour force in predicting outward FDI in Taiwan. Per our estimation model, we found the percentage of skilled workers steadily increased as Taiwan maintained improved labour standards. The increase in skilled workers also increased labour costs making it challenging for firms to stay onshore. However, skilled workers helped firms improve productivity, which justified increased labour costs. As a result, firms in Taiwan that complied with labour standards found it less challenging to pay higher wages and stayed onshore.JEL Code: J28, J38, F66
  Citation: The Economic and Labour Relations Review
  PubDate: 2021-12-18T02:41:04Z
  DOI: 10.1177/10353046211066932